The missions are all very doable. I've finished everything except Living Bones. I decided to try some other types of characters for a while.
You need to do a few passes through the plains and clean them out in order to level and gear up enough to tackle the main encampment. You just can't run up the river first time you get the quest and have any hope of living, or even of making it back through the plains alive.
It's slightly easier if you've got a ranged weapon. That being said, the new A* path finding actually makes it okay with a sword; goblins are more likely to run at you and close in than to get hung up on terrain and pick you off with thrown spears.
I suspect there might still be some tweaks that could be done with the rate of levelling and the enemy power. Level 3 in particular seems like a real grind.
To get just one potion, shift-click them. It grabs just one off the stack.
"I guess this isn't an issue if points are unlimited"
Yeah, if you limit points and want to encourage players to max out, it would require a lot more planning and discipline. Personally, I like a little randomness.
"But few viable systems have absolutely linear progression like that."
It doesn't have to be linear. What you end up doing is make it harder to advance individual skills as you get better at them. But skills which aren't as far along advance easier.
You can also make skills you don't use often or at a higher level of difficulty atrophy and lose points. i.e. if a warrior only ever casts healing, magic skill doesn't advance enough to be able to cast "time stop". The player needs to "get serious" about using a skill to get anywhere with it, and will probably have to sacrifice other skills.
That certainly does the trick... I'm impressed that it didn't require any code changes to get it working (if not perfect).
It occurs to me that it wouldn't be terribly difficult to do things like traps or magical fountains/places, although that would definitely require code changes.
It occurs to me that Stealth and Invisibility could fall under a Physical+Mental Power column as they do combine both aspects, but aren't strictly offensive or defensive abilities. Heal, Teleport, etc might also be more natural under there. Plus, it opens up slots for more "obviously" defensive Powers (Reflect Attack, for example, would be a really neat Mental+Defense Power).
A waypoint-based patrol system would be awesome, although for some creatures a purely random "milling about" behaviour is more natural. I guess if you have enough creatures patrolling and colliding then a waypoint system would make it look pretty random.
Been playing around with the game for a few days... Sweet. Much to like about it, and strongly reminds me of Diablo...
Some suggestions, though.
Screen size. I've been playing on a *netbook* and, well, could full screen at least take wide screens into account?
It needs randomness. Random mazes/dungeons are one thing, but it's too easy to just back off to cleared parts of a level and wait for things to regen. There should always be an element of risk anywhere you go, even low risk.
What I'd suggest trying for this is:
1. allow for some creatures to respawn after a while. Not all, obviously, but lower level critters respawing would keep a certain amount of risk while discouraging the player from camping for XP.
2. allow enemies to wander around a bit. I mean, goblins are going to patrol, zombies are going to be constantly hunting brains, etc. I'd probably allow each enemy a "wander zone" in which they can move around at will until the player is spotted and they become "active". This increases the likelihood of one accidentally stumbling on the player sitting around in a "safe" place, and combined with limited respawning just makes things more interesting and dynamic. But having a restricted wander zone ensures they don't upset the level layout by being in the King's bedroom when they're supposed to be guarding the front gate.
I'm also wondering if there might be some use for a new stat like... call it "Presence"? It'd allow for the use of concepts like Stealth and Fear/Intimidation and whatnot. Stealth being, basically, Physical Presence while might be Mental Presence. This leads to powers like Invisibility, Silence, and you might be able to reshuffle some of the existing ones. Just an idea; it might complicate things.
Definitely need more equipment slots. Not necessarily as much as Diablo, but it just seems odd that boots and belts and rings can't be worn at the same time.
I'd love to see the entire range of Powers available as potions or scrolls. Probably scrolls.
I'm not sure the main hand/off hand distinction is really needed. It'd be more natural to think of items as one-handed or two-handed. In particular, having missile weapons all be two-handed might help balance down the Archer. It would also allow you to introduce axes as heavy two-handed weapons while keeping swords one-handed. Have to be careful with this as it might be a major balance shift...
The missions are all very doable. I've finished everything except Living Bones. I decided to try some other types of characters for a while.
You need to do a few passes through the plains and clean them out in order to level and gear up enough to tackle the main encampment. You just can't run up the river first time you get the quest and have any hope of living, or even of making it back through the plains alive.
It's slightly easier if you've got a ranged weapon. That being said, the new A* path finding actually makes it okay with a sword; goblins are more likely to run at you and close in than to get hung up on terrain and pick you off with thrown spears.
I suspect there might still be some tweaks that could be done with the rate of levelling and the enemy power. Level 3 in particular seems like a real grind.
To get just one potion, shift-click them. It grabs just one off the stack.
I'm a Linux user and I never saw anything like that. But I'm running it out of the build directory, not from an install
"I guess this isn't an issue if points are unlimited"
Yeah, if you limit points and want to encourage players to max out, it would require a lot more planning and discipline. Personally, I like a little randomness.
"But few viable systems have absolutely linear progression like that."
It doesn't have to be linear. What you end up doing is make it harder to advance individual skills as you get better at them. But skills which aren't as far along advance easier.
You can also make skills you don't use often or at a higher level of difficulty atrophy and lose points. i.e. if a warrior only ever casts healing, magic skill doesn't advance enough to be able to cast "time stop". The player needs to "get serious" about using a skill to get anywhere with it, and will probably have to sacrifice other skills.
That certainly does the trick... I'm impressed that it didn't require any code changes to get it working (if not perfect).
It occurs to me that it wouldn't be terribly difficult to do things like traps or magical fountains/places, although that would definitely require code changes.
config/settings.txt would be a more logical place for "mouse_move" than the save file.
Point taken on the art issues.
It occurs to me that Stealth and Invisibility could fall under a Physical+Mental Power column as they do combine both aspects, but aren't strictly offensive or defensive abilities. Heal, Teleport, etc might also be more natural under there. Plus, it opens up slots for more "obviously" defensive Powers (Reflect Attack, for example, would be a really neat Mental+Defense Power).
A waypoint-based patrol system would be awesome, although for some creatures a purely random "milling about" behaviour is more natural. I guess if you have enough creatures patrolling and colliding then a waypoint system would make it look pretty random.
Bah... never mind about the screen size. Just saw that update.
Been playing around with the game for a few days... Sweet. Much to like about it, and strongly reminds me of Diablo...
Some suggestions, though.
Screen size. I've been playing on a *netbook* and, well, could full screen at least take wide screens into account?
It needs randomness. Random mazes/dungeons are one thing, but it's too easy to just back off to cleared parts of a level and wait for things to regen. There should always be an element of risk anywhere you go, even low risk.
What I'd suggest trying for this is:
1. allow for some creatures to respawn after a while. Not all, obviously, but lower level critters respawing would keep a certain amount of risk while discouraging the player from camping for XP.
2. allow enemies to wander around a bit. I mean, goblins are going to patrol, zombies are going to be constantly hunting brains, etc. I'd probably allow each enemy a "wander zone" in which they can move around at will until the player is spotted and they become "active". This increases the likelihood of one accidentally stumbling on the player sitting around in a "safe" place, and combined with limited respawning just makes things more interesting and dynamic. But having a restricted wander zone ensures they don't upset the level layout by being in the King's bedroom when they're supposed to be guarding the front gate.
I'm also wondering if there might be some use for a new stat like... call it "Presence"? It'd allow for the use of concepts like Stealth and Fear/Intimidation and whatnot. Stealth being, basically, Physical Presence while might be Mental Presence. This leads to powers like Invisibility, Silence, and you might be able to reshuffle some of the existing ones. Just an idea; it might complicate things.
Definitely need more equipment slots. Not necessarily as much as Diablo, but it just seems odd that boots and belts and rings can't be worn at the same time.
I'd love to see the entire range of Powers available as potions or scrolls. Probably scrolls.
I'm not sure the main hand/off hand distinction is really needed. It'd be more natural to think of items as one-handed or two-handed. In particular, having missile weapons all be two-handed might help balance down the Archer. It would also allow you to introduce axes as heavy two-handed weapons while keeping swords one-handed. Have to be careful with this as it might be a major balance shift...